Adventures and Mishapshttps://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com
A grown-up girl's diary of all of the things she loves, and all of the things that challenge her.Thu, 14 Dec 2017 02:20:15 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/5a039a8a485ff01aaae2b21d37a49e80?s=96&d=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.wp.com%2Fi%2Fbuttonw-com.pngAdventures and Mishapshttps://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com
It’s time.https://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/its-time/
https://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/its-time/#respondFri, 03 May 2013 04:28:27 +0000http://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/?p=1079]]>I’ve had a lot of urges to write and to share lately, but I haven’t been sure what the best format for such things would be. I thought about starting over. I thought about continuing a project I started last year.

I realized that this project isn’t done. When I started writing here, I labeled it as “A grown up girl’s diary of all the things she loves and all the things that challenge her.” I’ve faced a lot of challenges since I stopped posting here regularly. Life has changed from excitement and hope to utter despair and has come full circle. The lessons I’ve learned are priceless and I’m ready to start sharing again.

I’m not going to promise regularity because let’s be honest… I can’t even commit to brushing my hair every day, and I’m not writing this for anyone but myself and whomever might stumble upon it… but sometimes I need more space to say what I want to say, and here I don’t have to force my grammar to suffer in order to make things fit.

i

]]>https://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/its-time/feed/0flitryssThe year the world didn’t end…https://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/2012/12/30/the-year-the-world-didnt-end/
https://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/2012/12/30/the-year-the-world-didnt-end/#respondMon, 31 Dec 2012 06:18:33 +0000http://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/?p=1075]]>… but at times felt like it might.

This year has been the absolute hardest year of my entire life. It felt like everything was crumbling beneath my feet and I had to struggle very, very hard to hold on. There were days that I didn’t think I would make it.

I did. I made it. I learned a whole hell of a lot.

I lost the only man I might ever love. One day he just said it was over. On a day that was supposed to be the happiest day in a couple of years. We’d been having problems for a while but he is my best friend in the whole world and I honestly thought that love would be enough. It wasn’t. I didn’t tell my friends or family for a while. Nobody would understand. Everyone thought we were made for each other. Some still do.

I tried to be ok. I tried to hold my head up and pretend I was ok. I tried to act like I was happy and moving forward and onward when I was dying inside.

Things got worse. Everything kept crumbling.

One day I was defeated. Just about everything that could crumble, had. What hadn’t was about to anyway. I was at the bottom. I was full of so much hopelessness and despair. More than I could have ever imagined outside of a terminal diagnosis or the loss of a loved one. The “Why me” and the “Poor me” and the “I don’t deserve this” clouded almost everything.

So I decided to give up. To admit defeat, and to say “OK, I get it.” to whatever higher power/God/Universe/Nature and accept that what I was doing wasn’t working and that something needed to change. I needed to trust that somehow I needed the shit storm I’d been through and that I needed to be able to say “OK, I get it” before anything was going to change. I basically put it out there that I wasn’t going to make it if I didn’t get something, anything, that would lead to an answer about or somehow help to facilitate the changes that it had become clear that I needed to make.

A miracle happened. And then another one. And I now have a calmness of spirit and a clarity of thought that I feel like I have never had before. And Instead of saying “Maybe next year will be better, there’s no way it could be worse” I can move forward to new things with a better outlook and not be afraid.

Despair and hope can’t exist together because they are diametrically opposed. Hope came in, despair left, and I’m here. And I’m happy, or at least on my way to being happy. And I still have sad moments. And I still wonder why things happen the way they do. And I still want to curl up in a ball sometimes. A lot of times. But it’s getting a hell of a lot easier to uncurl.

]]>https://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/2012/12/30/the-year-the-world-didnt-end/feed/0flitryssHow I Ninjad a Case for my Galaxy Tablethttps://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/2011/09/08/how-i-ninjad-a-case-for-my-galaxy-tablet/
https://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/2011/09/08/how-i-ninjad-a-case-for-my-galaxy-tablet/#respondThu, 08 Sep 2011 23:38:28 +0000http://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/?p=983]]>Yeah, so all of the cases I could find for the Galaxy Tablet were ugly. And black. And like $50.

So I found a planner cover at Target for $10. It doesn’t have rings, it’s designed to hold a spiral bound note booklet type of thing. I removed said notebook thing.

I stuck three strips of the soft side of hook and loop fastener (um. Velcro.) to the back of the tablet. Soft side because when I hold it I want to not touch hard side. I then proceeded to stick three strips of the hard side in corresponding locations inside the back cover of the padfolio.

That’s pretty much it. I want to say this idea is copywrited or something but it isn’t, but if you make a bunch of money on it hopefully you’ll share.

I’ve never met you, but I know a lot about you. We probably would have been friends.

You liked shoes. You had hundreds of pairs of shoes.

You loved holiday decorations. You must have had rooms and rooms full of them, for every holiday imaginable.

You were fancy. Like glittery blouses and gold lame’ Mary Jane shoes fancy.

You had a lot of clothes. A lot of them you owned for 40 years and never took the tags off of.

You were my same size.

You liked square dancing and had all sorts of different dresses for it.

You are recently deceased and your family is selling her treasures in a front yard on a busy street.

So, Favorite Old Lady, here’s to you. Here’s to hoping you had a full and happy life, and that your friends and family are missing you tonight. I know about your zest for life and I wish I had gotten to witness it. Also I wish I had gotten to see you in your gold Mary Janes.

Don’t worry about your red dress with the blue flowers… You never wore it, but kudos for getting it on sale! You got it at the Wagon Wheel for about $10 off the original price of $55. I win though, because I got it for a buck. It fits me perfectly and I’m currently plotting a fancy night out as an excuse to have an occasion to wear it. I promise to take good care of it, it is going to the cleaners tomorrow, and I was so excited about it that I tried it on in my basement late at night and made Daniel take a picture of me with no make-up on which I am happily posting on the internet.

Love,

Aimee

PS: I also have a couple of your skirts from Pick-n-Save, and your really pretty full length fuschia dress from the 70s, but those are being saved for another post.

]]>https://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/2011/08/11/dear-favorite-old-lady/feed/1flitryssSquare Dance DressTweelief Society Sloppy Joeshttps://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/tweelief-society-sloppy-joes/
https://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/tweelief-society-sloppy-joes/#respondMon, 25 Jul 2011 17:28:40 +0000http://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/?p=971]]>My mom had a bunch of babies when I was growing up. Like, a whole bunch. Jon, Sue, Joe, Wendy, and James. That was five times of the ladies from church supplying our family with meals casseroles and jello concoctions while mom was recovering. When a friend was about to have her baby a couple of months ago, I kept joking about bringing her Sloppy Joes because they were pretty much the gold mine mega score of the church tradition I had grown up with. Eventually it was decided among the radness of the twitter people I have been lucky enough to become real life friends with that we would have “Tweelief Society” complete with a google docs spreadsheet (Thanks to R for both the official name and the techno-genius) and we all chipped in to feed the newly bigger family for a week or so after Baby S came to live with them.

I was asked for the recipe for these, but the truth is I have very little idea how they came about in the first place, because those of you who know me know that’s not how I operate. They are a combination of a few recipes I saw on epicurious.com while searching for fancy sloppy joes. Yes, I did just say “Fancy sloppy joes”.

They turned out to be kind of more vegetables than meat, which I loved about them. They are sweet and tangy and pretty delicious, and they have almost no fat and tons of fiber so they are pretty great for those of us who are trying to watch our nutritional values. Also, I’m assuming they can easily be made vegetarian by sauteeing the vegetables and then adding the tomato sauce and frozen MorningStar* crumbles and just heating them through, then adding the Bragg’s and vinegar.

Chop up all of the vegetables. Probably a food processor with the grater deal is a good idea because there are kind of a ton of vegetables involved.

Brown the turkey, garlic and the vegetables in the biggest skillet you can find. I put a little bit of olive oil in first because otherwise turkey will probably stick because it is so lean. Don’t worry about draining it, there’s hardly any fat in it, and the vegetables release some water during cooking which you will want to become part of the sauce. I vote don’t salt it because the Braggs is salty. Do pepper it.

After the meat is brown, add the tomato paste and let it keep bubble cooking. I don’t know the exact ratios of the Liquid Aminos and Apple Cider Vinegar, but be careful with the Bragg’s! A little goes a long way. Seriously. Start with maybe a couple of very small dribbles. You can’t go back. Add a small glug of apple cider vinegar and stir, then taste it and if you like it, you’re done. If not, play with it. I went back and forth with the vinegar and aminos for a few minutes before I felt like I liked it.

I brought it to my friend’s family with hamburger buns from the yum grocery store bakery. I ate it myself on low carb tortillas. I’m guessing either way works.

I also may or may not have eaten the last little bit of leftovers straight out of the container with a fork.

*This is not a sponsored post. I promise. You know how I know you believe me? I’m not a food blogger. I don’t even measure stuff, for crying out loud. I just like the MorningStar ones better than the Boca ones.

]]>https://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/tweelief-society-sloppy-joes/feed/0flitryssDear Twitter,https://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/2011/07/15/dear-twitter/
https://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/2011/07/15/dear-twitter/#commentsFri, 15 Jul 2011 20:25:25 +0000http://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/?p=967]]>You kind of just make my life complicated. While you’ve brought many wonderful friends into my life, and I am grateful to you, I think I’m going to leave you now. I’ll probably be back, but not for a little while.

Thanks,

Aimee

]]>https://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/2011/07/15/dear-twitter/feed/3flitryssThe “skinny bitch” isn’t looking at you.https://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/the-skinny-bitch-isnt-looking-at-you/
https://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/the-skinny-bitch-isnt-looking-at-you/#commentsTue, 12 Jul 2011 02:05:16 +0000http://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/the-skinny-bitch-isnt-looking-at-you/]]>I promise. She’s not judging you. She probably doesn’t even know you’re there. She is looking at other skinny girls. She either hates them for being more toned or more flexible than she is, or she’s taking notes. She is watching their every move, and far too busy to worry about you.

“Curvy” girls are watching each other too. But we aren’t judging. We are pushing each other. We are inspiring each other. Not necessarily in a “Come on sister! Fat bottom girls make the rockin’ world go round” type of way, or in a “We can be skinny too if we work hard!” Type of way, although yes, we absoutely share those moments.

The skinny girls who don’t know each other don’t smile and say hi to each other. We do. We find each other and smile in kind of a mutual sigh of relief, as in “Oh. You’re here too. We can do this.” Then we both think “Oh. Shit.”

And then we push each other by the fact that none of us wants to be the most out of shape girl in the room. And you know what? I’m totally fine with that. The girl about my same size was scared and needed to be in the back of the Body Combat class. There was another girl who was new, and said she didn’t want to be in the front. So I went to the front.

I survived. Also, I feel like I got more out of the class than I usually do in the back. I hope girl-my-size got more out of it too and that one day someone will guilt her into being brave enough to move to the front.

Last night I met up with a couple of fantastic girls for wings (baked ones) and beer (singular) and got surprised with a bottle of bright turquoise fingernail polish, which I pretty much flipped over, and was beyond excited to try.

Today I asked the internet to decide my fate… gym or nap. My very very dear adopted- sister-friend responded that the answer was “pedicure” so obviously that is what happened. Because I knew there was a bright and unnatural color in my fingertips’ future, I decided on a pretty pinkish coral for my toes.

The blue, which is “Robyn” by Zoya, is even greater in reality than I had imagined it.

]]>https://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/2011/07/10/fingers-and-toes-and-friends/feed/1flitryssimageCan we exchange numbers?https://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/can-we-exchange-numbers/
https://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/can-we-exchange-numbers/#commentsFri, 08 Jul 2011 00:21:57 +0000http://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/can-we-exchange-numbers/]]>I’ve been less active on the internet lately. It is totally on purpose. I just felt like I wanted to simplify and just sort of quiet down a little bit.

I joke a lot about swapping phone numbers with new friends like it is a big deal. Like we don’t follow each other on Twitter and know what the other had for breakfast, and what they were doing the previous evening at about 11:45. But really. Can I just have your number? Can I text you and be like “hey are you going to the new market in your hood?”

For a little while, I was escaping and venting to the Twitter. When a friend told me that one of her friends had asked if I was alright, I realized I had better suck it up and quit bitching.

My Twitter account has been set to private for the past few months, and I started thinking that maybe it is losing its appeal. Really it doesn’t do anything text messaging can’t do, so see above. We can totally still hang out.

I’m still here. I will still tweet and talk about what I had for breakfast. And if you ate hearing from me late at night, you will still know what I am or am not doing. I’ve been thinking lately that rather than tweet and confine myself to a character limit, I might even do a little bit more rambling here.

]]>https://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/can-we-exchange-numbers/feed/1flitryssMuscle weighs more than fat and the moon is stupid.https://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/the-moon-is-stupid/
https://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/the-moon-is-stupid/#commentsWed, 15 Jun 2011 20:33:38 +0000http://adventuresandmishaps.wordpress.com/?p=957]]>This morning I had kind of a break down. I was getting dressed and nothing was going right.

This led to: I suck at life because I am behind on laundry.

Which led to: If I wasn’t so fat, the clothes in my closet would fit right and I wouldn’t have this problem.

Which led to: Crying because I am frustrated that the scale has not moved downward despite 3+ weeks of exercising a LOT. (I know, I know. but still!)

Which led to: Crying because I am a failure at everything.

EVERYTHING. Really. Crying.

Then somebody mentioned being moody because of a lunar eclipse… So I feel a lot skinnier and like I totally have my shit together now, because it’s just the stupid moon’s fault.